Nowadays visitors to any website expect a secure and private experience while browsing.

Since January 2017, Chrome (version 56) and Firefox (version 51) are warning users when websites use insecure HTTP logins. HTTP uses an open, unencrypted connection between the visitor and the visited website that could be intercepted by anyone monitoring traffic between the visitor and the site. Google has announced a further change of policy back in February 2018  regarding Chrome. The company stated then that they have a “long-term plan to mark all HTTP sites as non-secure.”. Beginning in July 2018 with the release of Chrome 68, Chrome marked all HTTP sites as “not secure”. Firefox is following the same trend since version 70.

Having a website marked as non-secure decreases the confidence visitors have in it.

Another aspect is ranking in searches. Google has introduced in its site ranking algorithm a small negative bias towards HTTP sites.

Finally, several organizations, and some are CO-LaN Members, have enforced the following rule with their employees: no access and no download from websites accessed through HTTP. The trend towards such a restriction is not publicly documented and therefore its impact remains unknown.

Therefore, on June 18, 2020 the CO-LaN website has moved from https://www.colan.org to https://www.colan.org.

This move should have no real adverse effect since URLs are automatically redirected from HTTP to HTTPS. Perhaps browsing will appear slower because of redirections. Anyway, should you experience any problem, like a broken link or mixed content on a page that is preventing you from seeing it, please leave us a message at technologyofficer at colan.org. In the meantime enjoy our website.